Tony Rowcroft in his Dunedin clinic

It’s a Rowcroft family tradition to care for Dunedin’s hearing health

Caring for Dunedin’s hearing health is a Rowcroft family tradition, stretching back nearly 60 years. And it all started with the love and concern for a cherished family member.

‘My grandmother Madeleine Rowcroft began to lose her hearing in the 1950s soon after the birth of her second child,’ audiologist Anthony Rowcroft explains.

‘My grandfather Tony (pictured above in his clinic), who was a furniture maker at the time, became frustrated at the lack of support for grandmother’s hearing impairment, and irritated by the large, cumbersome “one-size-fits-all” hearing aids that you could only buy off the shelf at the local appliance store.’

Tony’s frustration spurred him on to study, by correspondence, the science and art of hearing aids and their fitting. In 1960 he opened the Dunedin Hearing Clinic.

First hearing clinic in New Zealand

‘It is thought to have been the first prescription-based, private, hearing aid fitting service available in New Zealand,’ Anthony says.

Tragically, eleven years later Tony died suddenly while at work (Madeleine passed away in 2013 at the age of 97). At the time of Tony’s death the Dunedin Hearing Clinic had become a service that many hearing impaired people in Otago and the lower South Island had come to depend on.

‘My father Paul made the difficult decision to give up his career as a primary school teacher and retrain to take over the clinic. There were no university audiology courses available in New Zealand then, so like Tony, Paul studied by correspondence and six months later re-opened the clinic. My mother Gaye worked as the office manager,’ says Anthony.

It was a natural progression for Anthony to follow the profession of audiology and in 1997 he graduated from Auckland University with a Master of Audiology.

Joining the family business

‘I initially worked for Waitemata Health and then Bay Audiology in Takapuna before moving back to Dunedin to join the family business in 2000,’ he says.

‘Paul and I built Dunedin Hearing Clinic up over the next 8 years, employing a number of other audiologists, including Nicholas Muir whom many of you will know from our Invercargill clinic.

‘In 2008 we sold the clinic to Bay Audiology. Paul stayed on as an audiometrist until he retired in 2011, and I worked as the Otago/Southland regional manager for another 3 years.

‘After working with Simon Melville at Bay Audiology, we’ve now combined our skills and experience within Audiology South, the only locally-owned, independent audiology practice in the south,’ says Anthony.

 

AUDIOLOGY SOUTH | 0800 547 836 | WWW.AUDIOLOGYSOUTH.CO.NZ

INVERCARGILL | 80 VICTORIA AVENUE | (03) 214 1378

QUEENSTOWN | 1088-92 FRANKTON ROAD | (03) 972 4680

DUNEDIN | 227 MORAY PLACE | (03) 471 5866